MONEY-LENDERS AND THEIR WAYS 143 



first would press him to accept it — particularly 

 on occasions when he might have taken more 

 liquor than was good for him. In this way 

 the peasant would accumulate a bigger and 

 still bigger burden of debt with the apparently 

 easy-going innkeeper. Then, suddenly, at some 

 moment when he knew the debtor could not 

 possibly pay, the money-lender would demand 

 payment in full, and take possession of his 

 entire property. But the money-lender did not 

 want to be a farmer himself, so he would let 

 the peasant remain there, requiring him, how- 

 ever, to pay, not only a rent for house and land, 

 but even for the "hire" of the oxen — hitherto 

 his own — which he required for the ploughing 

 operations. In this way everything the peasant 

 himself gained, save only a sum barely sufficient 

 to keep himself and his family alive, went into 

 the pocket of the money-lender. 



This system was more especially in vogue in 

 the mountain districts in the North-east of 

 Hungary, inhabited mainly by Slavs and Ruma- 

 nians of the most uncultured type, and no match 

 for the keener-witted individuals who preyed 

 upon them. Matters were not so bad in the 

 plains, where the superior culture and the better 

 position generally of the Magyar peasants made 

 them less susceptible to the wiles of the money- 



